First Reaction West Alabama

In what should have been the game of the week, the Argonauts made their biggest statement of the 2021 season blasting the Tigers of West Alabama 47-7 Saturday afternoon. West Florida scored on seven of their first nine drives, including five touchdown drives, while holding a high powered UWA offense (31.o points per game) to no points on 13 attempts. The only Tigers’ score came on a long defensive touchdown in the 4th quarter. Austin Reed was dealing Saturday eclipsing 400 yards and posting another 4 TD contest, while completing 56% of his passes and tossing one pick. The Argonauts had a pair of 100 yard receivers, including David Durden in his return from injury, and Shomari Mason had another double digit yards per carry average. The story of the game was the Argonaut defense, which we will get into more detail on below, but this unit absolutely shut down West Alabama all game long. They forced two turnovers and sacked Jack McDaniels five times. It was a big statement, over a quality opponent, on the road with a ton of playoff weight, and it came just at the right time as the Argos will take on the Valdosta State Blazers next weekend for Gulf South superiority.

First Half Fireworks

The Argos came out guns blazing in Livingston. In the first quarter the Argos accumulated 198 yards on 21 plays (9.4 per play) and followed that up with and even more impressive 219 yards over 17 plays (12.8 yards per play). Oh the back of this 400 yard first half, they took a 30-0 lead into halftime. West Florida won the toss and differed to the second half, and when the defense took the field for the opening drive they came up with a 5 play 20 yard+forced punt stand. UWF has had issues with opening drive scores this year, so this really set the offense up in a good place early on and the offense in turn delivered. Austin Reed found Ka’Ron Ashley on a scramble drill, in traffic and Ashley fought across the goal line for the opening six, although the PAT was blocked. The defense stopped the next drive similarly quickly, 6 plays 17 yards later, forcing another punt and giving the offense the ball back quickly, but backed up inside their own 10 yard line this time. Reed and Co turned that into an 88 yard drive, on the back of a 54 yard bomb to Rodney Coates, and a Griffin Cerra FG, finishing the quarter with a 9-0 lead. The Tigers and Argos traded punts on their next two drives, and then UWF really hit the gas.

Austin Reed threw touchdowns on each of the next three drives, leading the offense on drives of 55, 97 yard, and 58 yards. And it just was coming pretty easy for the offense. Averaging almost 13 yards per play, the Argos racked up another 21 unanswered points in the 2nd quarter and hit the locker room with their biggest first half lead of the season. It was an impressive opening for an offense that has been consistently good all season, but this was against a good defensive team with playmakers at all three levels. West Florida was able to run the ball as needed in the opening half, racking up 91 of 159 yards rushing early in the game. Those efforts were lead by Shomari Mason who had a cool game with his recent standards, finishing with 5 carries for 66 yards but a blazing 13.2 yard per carry average. The Argos also got strong running from Johnson Jr (12 for 59 1 TD) early in the game.

It was a big return for David Durden, after missing a couple of weeks with an injury, the Argos former top target had 5 catches for 105 yards and 2 TD with a 31 yard long. He was inches away from two miraculous TD grabs, but couldn’t quite make the catch on one and came down out of bounds on the other. Regardless of the two misses, it was Durden’s 4th multiple score game of the season and brings his scoring tally to 6 out of 7 games he has appeared in as an Argonaut. He looked like he was completely full speed, and having him back really opened up the offense because of what he can do over the top to teams. Ashley lead the Argos on the night with 125 yards receiving, he was targeted a team high 12 times with 6 catches 3 first downs and 2 TD. Reed had great touch on the night, from memory I’d guess he had at least three balls that were very catchable dropped, and at least two more that could have been caught, so his already gaudy numbers (403 yards 10.3 yards per attempt) weren’t even quite as good as they should have been. It was his 7th 4 TD game of the season, including three in a row, and his second 400 yard game of the season.

Defense Pitches a Shutout

This was exactly what I’d been waiting to see from this defense all season. It was a dominating four quarter performance, featuring turnovers, negative plays, three and outs, and a 60 minute shutout performance. First off, this was a defensive shutout despite the 7 points scored, with those coming on a a UWF fumble returned for a TD. The Argonauts defense was facing a team that had been averaging 439 yards per game, and held them to 136 yards below their season average. Quarterback Jack McDaniel completed passes at an high rate (74%) but it took him 43 attempts to get just 268 yards (6.2 per attempt) and he threw a pick six to D’Anthony Bell in the second half. The team was lead by Shea Campbell (7 tackles 1 fumble recovery) and D Bell (6 tackles 1 TFL 1 INT return for TD), and allowed just 63 yards on the ground (excluding sacks).

Continuing a trend from the second half of last week for the Argos situational defense was solid. West Florida had a hard time containing Mississippi College in the first half on 3rd and 4th downs but eventually settled in in the second half. That continued with the Argonauts allowing just 4 of 15 on 3rd and 4th down attempts, including 0 for 7 on 3rd down in the 1st half. That was big, because UWF was allowing some yardage on drives, they only forced two three and outs all game. The defense settled in and didn’t allow the Tigers to string together first downs, allowing more than two first downs on an individual drive once in the first half.

The Argos got back to what they had done well early in the season, creating chaos on defense. They forced three fumbles, recovering one, intercepted a ball that was returned for a long TD, and got a stop on 4th down to force a turnover on downs, all in UWF territory. The turnover margin may have been even for the day, but they turned their turnovers into points on both of theirs, as well as scoring off of the stop on downs. The big play of the night came late in the 4th quarter with the Tigers still throwing downfield, D’Anthony Bell picked off McDaniels, shed a few would be tacklers and returned the INT for a 90 yard score. The defensive front was all over the backfield this weekend as well, finishing with 5 sacks and 9 TFL. DJ Artis, Khabib Gilmore, and Kee Whetzel all we’re getting busy from their OLB spots, racking up multiple pressures off the edge each, including four of the five sacks and pressure that forced the INT.

Griffin Cerra

Someone that I haven’t given enough credit to so far this season has been Placekicker Griffin Cerra. After some struggles by the opening week starter Danny Laudet, the Argonauts turned to Griffin Cerra in the Delta State contest. Since then he is a perfect 6 for 6 on FG and has developed as a real weapon for West Florida. While this team tends to go for it a lot on 4th down, even when they’re in kicking range, a lot of that has been because they haven’t had consistent kicking play. This weekend Cerra started out the game having his first PAT blocked, but then he made up for that with FGs of 26 and 43 yards and going 5 of 5 on his remaining PATs. He has scored six FGs in the last six games, and has a FG in each game except for last week against, with three of his kicks from 40+ yards. It’s really encouraging to see that the Argos have found themselves a reliable kicker and he is coming into form as they push for the playoffs. He is also 34 of 35 on PATs, following the block, since taking over place kicking duties.